On this day

1684: Puppet shows performed and shopping stalls were set up on the Thames in London during a deep freeze.

1799: Prime Minister William Pitt (the Younger) introduced income tax at two shillings in the pound (10p) to raise funds for the Napoleonic Wars.

1898: Gracie Fields (Grace Stansfield) was born in Rochdale. She became one of Britain’s most popular entertainers and was made a Dame of the British Empire in 1979 and died the same year.

1902: New York State introduced a bill to outlaw flirting in public.

1914: Striptease artiste Gypsy Rose Lee was born in Seattle. She became Queen of Burlesque in the 1930s and her autobiography, Gypsy, became a hit musical.

1927: Greta Garbo and John Gilbert, who were real-life lovers, shocked cinemagoers in New York by their uninhibited kissing in the silent film Flesh And The Devil.

1951: Life After Tomorrow, the first film to receive an X rating in Britain, opened in London.

1957: Anthony Eden resigned as Prime Minister in the wake of the Suez Canal crisis.

1972: The liner Queen Elizabeth, after being removed to Hong Kong to serve as a floating marine university, sank after catching fire.

1997: Yachtsman Tony Bullimore was found alive, five days after his boat capsized in the freezing wastes of the Southern Ocean, 2,200km off the coast of Australia.

2007: Apple CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the first iPhone (pictured below)